Stars’ Hemsky could be out 'a little bit' with lower-body injury

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Stars’ Hemsky could be out 'a little bit' with lower-body injury

The Dallas Stars could be without Ales Hemsky for a few games after the veteran winger was forced to leave Tuesday’s game after blocking a shot. Hemsky, 32, has underperformed in Dallas and has three goals and 13 points in 37 games this season.

The Dallas Stars haven’t been bitten too badly by the injury bug this season, but they could be without smooth-skating playmaker Ales Hemsky for at least a few games after he left Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets following a blocked shot.

Hemsky was out on a defensive-zone faceoff late in the second period. The Stars lost the faceoff and the puck ended up on the tape of Fedor Tyutin, who loaded up and let go a slapshot that Hemsky blocked with what appeared to the top of his left foot. Hemsky immediately fell to the ice. Play was stopped shortly thereafter and Hemsky hobbled to the dressing room:

Hemsky did not return to Tuesday’s game and the Stars ruled him out of the contest with a lower-body injury. Post-game, Stars coach Lindy Ruff delivered the news that Hemsky might not be able to suit up Thursday against the Nashville Predators.

Hemsky, 32, has underwhelmed again for the Stars this season. In 37 games, he has just three goals and 13 points and has taken on more of a third-line role for Ruff. Hemsky was signed in July 2014 to a three-year, $12-million deal by the Stars, but hasn’t produced near what the Stars were expecting of him. In 2014-15, he scored 11 goals and 32 points in 76 games after coming off a near point-per-game performance alongside Jason Spezza in Ottawa just months prior to signing his deal. The Stars acquired Spezza, too, but the duo has yet to match the same chemistry they had as Senators.

Hemsky has a long history of injuries and has never been able to piece together a full season. The closest he has come was an 81-game campaign in 2005-06, but he missed one outing as a scratch. Last season, Hemsky missed three games with a lower-body injury. He has already missed one game this season with a hip injury.

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Cal Clutterbuck’s five-year extension won’t bite the Islanders for a couple of seasons, but when it does, it could cost the Islanders more than just money and cap flexibility.

Cal Clutterbuck is on pace to have his highest scoring season as a New York Islander, he’s averaging more ice time than he has in any other year with the club and he was given an alternate captaincy ahead of the campaign.

And even with all that, it’s hard to understand how exactly the Islanders saw fit to have the 29-year-old winger a five-year, $17.5-million extension.

Clutterbuck is undoubtedly one of the best at playing the specific role he plays, which is to say that if you’re looking for a hard-nosed player who’s going to put his body on the line, he’s your guy. Fans love him, teammates assuredly do, too, and he’s exactly the kind of bottom-six player that most GMs around the league would love to have on their team at the right price.

Problem is that it’s really tough to call $3.5 million per season the right price, and that’s exactly what Clutterbuck will be earning come the start of the 2017-18 campaign. That’s roughly the same cap hit as others such as Kyle Turris, Cam Atkinson, Joel Ward and Matt Read will be carrying next season, and that’s only to name a few.

Another worrisome part about the deal is that it’s hard to see how even the biggest fitness freak could maintain their ability to play Clutterbuck’s style into their mid-30s. The wear and tear on Clutterbuck’s body by the time he reaches the back-end of the contract could be substantial. Despite him playing up the lineup right now, he’s better suited to a bottom-six role and definitely will be later in his career. If he loses a step, $3.5 million will be a lot to fork over for a fourth-line winger and it’ll be a deal that’s near impossible to move.

But it goes beyond simply the signing of Clutterbuck, because there has now been a trio of deals handed out by Islanders GM Garth Snow that have been puzzling — and, truthfully, concerning — when it comes to the future of the team.

Ahead of free agency, there was the signing of Casey Cizikas to a five-year, $16.75-million deal. Then came the monster seven-year, $38.5-million contract inked by free agent Andrew Ladd. The Clutterbuck signing is No. 3.

It should be noted that the deals for Clutterbuck, Cizikas and Ladd don’t actually prevent the Islanders from doing all that much in the next two seasons. In fact, as of next season, every single current Islander forward will be locked up to a contract. Come 2018-19, when John Tavares becomes a free agent, the slate is wiped rather clean with the team able to operate with more than $40 million in cap space. Beyond Tavares, the Islanders’ UFAs come 2018-19 will include Josh Bailey, Nikolai Kulemin, Jason Chimera, Mikhail Grabovski and Thomas Hickey.

And $40-plus million can buy you a lot, and certainly it will allow the Islanders to hang on to Tavares, if he chooses to remain with the team. (Not to say he won’t, but a lot can happen between now and July 2018.) All the UFAs, save maybe Bailey and Hickey, will be allowed to head elsewhere, as well. A restricted free agent deal for Brock Nelson could be pricey, but the Islanders should realistically be able to lock him up. As of right now, the Islanders will also be without an NHL goaltender under contract, but there will be stop-gap options available. So, yes, the Islanders should be fine in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

However, things could get dicey after that.

Come 2019-20, the Islanders will watch Travis Hamonic become a UFA, see the end of entry-level deals for Mathew Barzal, Anthony Beauvillier, Joshua Ho-Sang and Michael Dal Colle and still have more than $12.3 million locked up in Ladd, Cizikas and Clutterbuck. Finding the money to lock up those five players, as well as any others who could be seeking new contracts around that time, will be incredibly difficult.

The cost of those trio of deals goes beyond money and cap space, though, because there’s a serious possibility the Islanders could waste some of the best years of Tavares’ career. If the Islanders can only afford to hang on to the pieces they have without being able to add any veteran or prime-aged players, it gets hard to see how this franchise takes the next step forward, even with Tavares in his prime.

They’ll need a few adds on defense, a few forwards who can contribute and the goaltending situation will need to be figured out. Ilya Sorokin should give Islanders fans hope, but even the best goaltending prospects sometimes don’t pan out in the big league. If the Islanders need to improve in goal when their prospects are hitting their stride, the money spent in the past seven months could very well prevent that from becoming a reality.

It’s big-money, head-scratcher deals like Clutterbuck’s that teams have had to buy their way out of in the past, and it’s scary to think the Islanders could have set themselves up for the same fate three times over. The Islanders' post-season performance was reason for excitement, but now it seems, more than anything, there's cause for concern about what the future could hold.

Montreal can't panic over injuries to Galchenyuk and Desharnais

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Montreal can't panic over injuries to Galchenyuk and Desharnais

While the loss of the two centers is a crushing blow in the short-term, this team is positioned too well to lose assets in a hasty trade scenario

The Montreal Canadiens will be without top center Alex Galchenyuk and fellow pivot David Desharnais for at least six weeks, perhaps even eight. Both players sustained knee injuries in recent games and the news is obviously not good. But GM Marc Bergevin would make it even worse by jumping into a hasty trade.

True, the Habs now look skeletal down the middle (though Tomas Plekanec isn't a horrible choice for the top line and Andrew Shaw can help out), but this is a short-term problem. Montreal is the top team in the Eastern Conference right now and with netminder Carey Price, they can win more than a few games in the next month or so just on the strength of his gifted play. And the Shea Weber-led defense has been better than expected, so even if the Habs are super-boring and conservative until February, they'll get some results.

Will Montreal still be on top by then? Maybe not, but as long as they don't lose like, 20 games in a row, they'll still be in a playoff position with enough runway left to climb back up the rungs. And as the Los Angeles Kings have proven twice already, you can win the Stanley Cup as long as you get into the playoffs, particularly if your goalie is one of the best on the planet (caveat: being a great possession team helps and the Canadiens are only middling).

But a trade is not the way to go, particularly since the Canadiens aren't deep to begin with. They don't have many attractive pro prospects right now – unless they can drum up interest in a Charles Hudon or Nikita Scherbak – and their best recent draft pick is defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, who should be seen as untouchable. I mean, if Pittsburgh offers up Evgeni Malkin for the 2016 first-rounder and a couple other goodies, you make that trade – but I don't think that's going to happen.

If anything, Montreal needs to build their pipeline up, instead of taking assets away from it. The Canadiens ranked just 23rd in the NHL in our most recent Future Watch edition and Sergachev was the only pick they made in the first two rounds this summer. They do have two second-rounders for 2017 (their own and Washington's selection), but again: they need those.

Galchenyuk and Desharnais will be back and in all likelihood, the Canadiens will still be in a playoff position. The short-term may seem a little bleak, but the price of a quick patch isn't worth the long-term loss. Patience is a virtue here.

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The Golden Knights have hit another hurdle with their name, this time with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A trademark request has been rejected, but it doesn’t sound like the team expects a name change.

The Vegas Golden Knights are really having a tough time catching a break in the naming department.

On Wednesday, a trademark request by the Golden Knights was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in large part because the name and logo were deemed too similar to that of the NCAA’s College of St. Rose Golden Knights.

Yes, that’s right, yet another roadblock between the NHL’s newest franchise and the name Golden Knights.

The first hurdle for the team, and the first real hubbub about the name, came shortly after the naming ceremony in late November. The team had only had the Golden Knights moniker in place for a week when it was reported by The Fayetteville Observer’s Steve DeVane that the U.S. Army was set to review Vegas’ use of the name because it is shared by the Army’s highly decorated parachute team.

And all that came after Vegas owner Bill Foley purposely strayed from his first choice for the team name, Black Knights, in order to avoid any conflict with the U.S. Army’s NCAA athletics programs and after the singular name, Knights, was reportedly avoided in order to forego any conflict with the OHL’s London Knights.

Suffice to say, the naming process has been a headache thus far. However, before those who despise the name and/or logo go celebrating in the streets, it should be noted that the latest naming hurdle likely means nothing in the long run.

“Office actions like this are not at all unusual, and we will proceed with the help of outside counsel in preparing a response to this one,” the statement reads.

In their statement, Vegas also pointed to the shared names of UCLA and Boston, both named the Bruins, Miami and Carolina, both named the Hurricanes, and even pointed out that Vegas and Clarkson share the Golden Knights name. None of this is to mention the MLB’s Texas Rangers and the NHL’s New York Rangers share a name.

“We believe, at the end of the day, all parties will embrace the fact that we are the Vegas Golden Knights and this absolutely will work out,” Craven told Gotz. “I hope people don’t overreact to this at all. We believe everyone will be satisfied. We are only going to enhance the name Golden Knights for everyone. That’s our goal.”

UPDATE: NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly has released the following statement:

“We are currently reviewing the Trademark Office's letter and will prepare a detailed response demonstrating why we continue strongly to believe the Vegas Golden Knights mark should be registered in co-existence with the college registration, just as a number of other nicknames currently co-exist in professional and college sports (particularly where there is no overlap as to the sport for which the nickname is being used). That response is not due until June 7, 2017.

“We consider this a routine matter and it is not our intention to reconsider the name or logo of this franchise. We fully intend to proceed as originally planned, relying on our common law trademark rights as well as our state trademark registrations while we work through the process of addressing the question raised in the federal applications.”

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Fans want to see NHL players play at the Olympics, the players want to play in the tournament, but the NHL’s Board of Governors still needs some convincing.

If the NHL is going to send players to the Olympics, the NHL’s Board of Governors are going to need some convincing and they’re going to need it in rather short order.

It was reported around the World Cup of Hockey that the NHL had a mid-January deadline to decide on Olympic participation for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. And at the first day of Board of Governors meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., little more than a month from that deadline, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t make it sound as though the situation is all that positive in terms of the world’s best players heading to the tournament.

One of the sticking points for the Board of Governors, according to Bettman, was the impact the Olympics have on the NHL product.

"There are a lot of owners, clubs, over the years that have been very concerned about what Olympic participation does to the season, what it does to the players in terms of injuries, not just to those that go but having a compressed schedule can make the players more tired, more wear and tear, and the potential for injury is greater,” Bettman said, according to NHL.com’s Dan Rosen.

Even still, Bettman approached the IIHF’s assurance of covering the costs with skepticism and a warning that it doesn’t mean Olympic participation is green lit.

"We have been very clear to Rene Fasel at the IIHF and to Don Fehr at the [NHL] Players' Association that if the expenses aren't being covered, the League isn't paying for them and there really is nothing to talk about," Bettman said, according to Rosen. "Just because somebody may decide to pay for them, and to this point we don't actually know where that stands, that doesn't mean that it's a go.”

Bettman added that he wasn’t sure there was “even the money to cover what's been covered in the last Olympics,” regardless of what the IIHF would say. And even if everything fell in line for an Olympic participation proposal in the coming days, weeks or month, Bettman said it will still need the approval of the Board of Governors in order for the players to be sent to South Korea for the tournament.

"If there is something at some point to take to the Board, it will need an affirmative vote of the Board of Governors," Bettman said, according to Rosen. "I think it's fair to say that there is some strong negative sentiment in the room, but nothing was decided today.”